“I Partly Saved Gran Turismo’s Fate”, Says Shuhei Yoshida

[mistamontiel]

GT1 has a vehicle roster in the hundreds, the only thing close to "sim" then was cutesy Need For Speed 2 which was lolike a dozen? GT1 has far much more graphical prowess

 

[SuperSportX]

Remember when Kaz said car sounds were too realistic? To players, the cars sounded like "washing machines". Remember those complaints?
I can't recall the exact reason, but I think Kaz said the sounds were realistic for the upper rev range(somebody help me)?

Dialling back the physics was probably like that. We can't even imagine how the franchise would have been had Kaz' vision with the original physics panned out.

Maybe Gran Turismo would have been a flop and the first game may have been the only game. Then, maybe we would only know Kaz as the real Flora and Fauna simulator guy.

I'm not sure if he said that or not but I do know from watching a BTS video of them dyno testing a Vector M12 for GT2 audio, that they recorded the cars at very low RPM ranges for some reason and artificially raised them for the cars that use real samples. Though IMO some of the cars sounded really good albeit not realistic at all; i'm definitely glad they switched to real audio, even though it's still alot of room for improvement.

 

[05XR8]

Here it is:

Gran Turismo's Engine Sounds, Drag Racing, the DeltaWing, & More: Kazunori Yamauchi's 2012 GTPlanet Interview

Kazunori Yamauchi hints at his future plans for the Gran Turismo series, while addressing frequent complaints and questions about GT5.

www.gtplanet.net

Critics often complain about the car engine sounds in GT5, claiming they sound sterile or artificial. What is your opinion on these engine sounds in GT5, and will these critics’ concerns be addressed in future games?

My perspective is that the sounds in Gran Turismo are just too real. With the recording method we use, we use a dyno and put the load on, and the sound we produce is just too accurate. I think it would be a good thing to sort of design the sound a little bit, and so that is something I would like to challenge ourselves with in the future.
What I find is that one of our themes with Gran Turismo is to create something that is real; that is what our team is focused on, but that can be an issue sometimes as well. If we see something in front of us, we try to reproduce that very accurately, and that tendency is getting stronger.
But, I think we maybe need to make things sexier sometimes, and I think that is something the Gran Turismo team might need to work on. It could also be because our team is growing in number, which could be one of our barriers to that goal.

So, let’s say the changing of the physics put him off when he maybe should have stuck to his guns. He’s been chasing physics for twenty five years when he probably had it right the first time. Of course we’ll never know now because none of us here had experienced the trial before the final product.

 

[Fredzy]

I’ll never forget plowing straight off the road on that very first turn I took in GT. T1 hairpin at Grand Valley, jaw agape. That was it for me, still playing today. Would be 27 years to the day next week.

 

[Mr. Premium]

There was a now largely forgotten Gran Turismo rival on the PS2 called Enthusia that had much more realistic driving physics than any GT title at the time. Great game but hard to play for any casual gamer. A victim of its own success (as a driving simulator) as it largely sunk without a trace.

Oh boy, the real trouble were the controls using a DS2. Apparently it drove great with a wheel, but I recall way too much delay with the pad that it just wasn't fun. It's too bad, they really made an effort with it.

 

[Tornado]

GT1 has a vehicle roster in the hundreds, the only thing close to "sim" then was cutesy Need For Speed 2 which was lolike a dozen? GT1 has far much more graphical prowess

Amount of cars and graphics is what makes a game a Sim. Got it.

 

[mistamontiel]

Fax

 

[Amon]

I think it's best to remember these are PS1 and 2 games we're talking about. Meaning with no triggers there's no good way to have three simultaneous analog inputs for steering+accelerator+brake.

So even if the underlying physics were realistic, playing them wasn't because, for the 99.9% of people playing on a controller, your only possible pedal inputs were either X and Square (pressure sensitive, but you'd need impossibly fine motor control) or the right-analog stick (you can't trailbrake).

A game that didn't work with those inputs at the time wasn't "realistic", it would just be a bad game.

I Played GT1 and GT2 at launch using a Namco NeGcon as a controller. That controller had 3 analog axes. One for steering one for gas pedal and one for throttle. GT1 and GT2 fully supported that controller.

Negcon was released right at the start of the PS1 lifecycle, as a dedicated controller for Namco Ridge Racer 1, and could be used in full analog mode with a lot of PS1 games.

 

[Tornado]

All of the PSX racing wheels used the NeGcon protocol as well, and those were even more common than the actual NeGcon itself

 

[equalitus]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

“I Partly Saved Gran Turismo’s Fate”, Says Shuhei Yoshida​

Former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, has shared a fascinating story offering a rare glimpse into the early development challenges of the very first Gran Turismo title...

Interesting article, somehow I remember my first [and only attempt] at using a wheel when playing GT, which obviously was GT3. I tried for many hours for a few days and it was extremely more difficult than using the DS2. Which meant that I gave up on a wheel since GT3.

 

[ShonnDaylee]

I had the original Logitech GT Force (Pretty sure that's what it was called) for PS2. After a year and a half of playing with the Dual Shock 2 I bought the GT Force (270 Degrees) and it was a steep learning curve (at first), being my first time with a force feedback wheel. I stuck with it, and it became 2nd nature. Then they released GT4 with the Driving Force Pro (900 Degrees), and it was a whole new can of worms to open. I was a drifting god with the 270 degree wheel. The jump to 900 degrees was akin to starting over, but it was a fun challenge. Those were the days.